The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) noted that it was working hard to develop education to the satisfaction of the people, which is significant for us to understand and grasp the future educational reforms in China and help us solve some ideological problems in educational practice. Before the Third Plenary Session of the CPC 18th Central Committee, a heated discussion occurred among the public about deepening the reforms of the current education system. The publicâs attention was focused on the future trend in Chinaâs education system due to serious concerns about the problems and challenges facing the system. The people have high expectations about education reform and development in China. All of these factors suggest that education in China is entering a new stage. The public expected the Third Plenary Session of the CPC 18th Central Committee to present a blueprint for this new stage and indicate the direction of the reforms. The comprehensive educational reform concept put forward by the Third Plenary Session of the CPC 18th Central Committee, which positions education reform and development as part of the overall approach of building a well-off society in a comprehensive way, confirms that great effort will be made to develop education to the satisfaction of the people.
What is the focus of education reform in China?
A significant change has occurred in recent years in China regarding education reform. Before the Partyâs 17th National Congress, issues involving education reform belonged to the field of cultural development. After the Partyâs 17th National Congress in 2007, education reform was placed in the field of social development. Now, the Third Plenary Session of the CPC 18th Central Committee has put education reform at the center of social development, expecting to build a fair, just and harmonious society through education reform. Education is the primary task of social construction and the biggest livelihood issue. It affects every person and every family, and is the issue about which people care most. It also directly addresses a variety of social conflicts. An important criterion to measure whether we build a moderately well-off society in a comprehensive way is to develop education to the satisfaction of the people. This criterion has determined the new development trend of Chinaâs education policy: to build a fair and just society through education.
1.1 Historical Orientation: Education Reform Gets into Deep Water
1.1.1 The âChinese Modelâ of Educational Development
Significant achievements have been made in educational reform and development in China since the Reform and Opening Up. A series of successful models for the education field have been created and an effective education system has been established to support the rapid development of the national economy. The educational reform and development are based on universal factors that constitute the Chinese model of educational development in China attracted a great deal of attention around the world.
The Chinese model of educational development is based on the following experiences:
Firstly, the overall education level in China has risen. An important criterion to judge the overall education level in a country is the per capita years of education, which is not only a mark of educational development, but also an important indicator of social development. Therefore, raising the number of per capita years of education has become a goal that each country and region in the world tries its best to attain. During the process of Reform and Opening Up, the Chinese Government increased the average number of years of education, under the guidance of the priority development strategy of education, in order to adapt to the needs of the countryâs medium and long-term economic and social development. According to the statistics, the universal access rate of the nine-year compulsory education in China has exceeded 99% by the development of 40 years. The illiteracy rate among young adults has dropped to below 5%. The gross enrollment rate in higher education has reached 26.9%. The average number of years of education in China grew from 4.5 years in 1980 to 9.5 years in 2012, making it among the top-ranked developing countries in the world.
Secondly, the institutional arrangement to ensure the priority development of education has gradually been improved and become a core state policy. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping pointed out that if the educational level of a country with a billion people were to be greatly improved and updated, the advantages provided by its human resources could not be matched by any country in the world. Since then, the slogan of âresources allocation, education firstâ has resounded throughout China. Jiang Zemin emphasized at the 14th CPC National Congress in the 1990s that we must prioritize the strategic development of education and work hard to improve the whole nationâs ideological, moral, scientific and cultural level. This is a project of fundamental importance in the realization of modernization in China. The Education Law of the Peopleâs Republic of China promulgated in 1995 explicitly stipulated that education is the basis of the socialist modernization drive and that the state gives priority to educational development. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the Chinese Government has combined the priority development of education with the building of a country with powerful human resources. Hu Jintao pointed out that we must unswervingly follow the strategy of invigorating the country through science and education and the strategy of re-invigorating the country through human resources development and prioritizing education. In order to carry out the priority education development strategy, the Outline of the National Medium and Long Term Educational Reform and Development Plan (2010â2020) has âpriority developmentâ as the first item in the 20-word work policy of the education reform and development.
Thirdly, the basic public education system covering both urban and rural areas has been preliminarily established. The system refers to the basic public services provided in the education field, characterized by four main features: public, universal, basic and developmental, which is closely related to the most direct, realistic and immediate interest of the people. As a public service system for all the people of the nation, the basic public education system includes preschool education, compulsory education, senior middle school education, special needs education and vocational education. The core of the system is to ensure the rights of both urban and rural children of school age to equally access basic education and to promote the balanced development of compulsory education. During the Reform and Opening Up, China established a basic public education system covering urban and rural areas. On the one hand, the system has promoted the modernization of the basic public education system. It has universalized the nine-year compulsory education and preliminarily established the basic public education system from preschool education to senior middle school education. It has adopted effective measures to ensure the right of disadvantaged groups to access basic public education services. It has solved the problem of peasant workersâ children access to the compulsory education. Furthermore, it has improved the education support system for peasant workersâ children (those who have migrated to cities with their parents), students from economically disadvantaged families and disabled students. It has promulgated policies to give priority to educational development in rural areas, accelerate the elimination of the urbanârural gap in compulsory education and realize the balanced development of urban and rural education at a higher level. On the other hand, it has preliminarily established a public finance support mechanism to promote the equalization of basic public education services. In order to resolve the problem of lack of equality in the allocation of education resources, the central government has established the public education financial system based on the equalization of basic public education services. The Outline of the National Medium and Long Term Educational Reform and Development Plan (2010â2020) points out that the governmentâs general transfer payment tilts toward basic public education services and provides support for weak areas, weak schools and groups of people in financial difficulties. Through the above-mentioned policies and measures, the government strives to equalize access to basic public education services.
Fourthly, the reform and innovation of educational institutions and mechanisms is continuing. Education reform is based on changes in institutions and cannot be successful without innovation in institutions and mechanisms. For more than 30 years, significant innovations have been introduced to educational institutions in several ways. The first way is the adjustment of educational structure and the optimization of allocation and distribution of educational resources. In order to achieve the balanced development of basic education, the distribution of rural schools has been adjusted. In order to meet the needs of industrial transformation and upgrading, a modern vocational education system has been established. The second way is the constant deepening of the reform of the talent cultivation and training mechanism and quality-oriented education. The Chinese Government, whose goal is to build an innovation-oriented nation, has vigorously implemented an innovation-driven development strategy. All schools at all levels have worked hard to cultivate and train creative and innovative people who are good at innovative thinking and have manipulative ability via different types of school based innovating models. The third way is to promote educational equality and the rational allocation of education resources in different areas and among different groups of people, to guarantee the right of vulnerable groups of people to access compulsory education. For this purpose, the Chinese Government has increased financial investment and raised the amount of spending on education as a percentage of GDP. Education finance in China reached the statutory 4% of GDP for the first time in 2012. With its powerful financial support, the government has successfully implemented the nutritious meal plan and school bus plan in rural primary schools, and generally increased average appropriation for students in various schools, and particularly for university students.
The Chinese model of education development can be summarized as âtwo strategies and one pathâ. The first strategy, put forward by the government in 1995, is the âstrategy of invigorating the country by science, technology and educationâ. It says: âAdhere to the principle that education is foundation and put science, technology and education in an important position in the social and economic developmentâ. The latest expression of this strategy is the National Strategy of Innovation-Driven Development. The second strategy, as laid out in the Decision of the CPC Central Committee on the Education Reform in 1985, is the âeducation priority development strategyâ. The Outline of Education Reform and Development in China in 1993 reiterated the concept of prioritizing educational development. The Outline of the National Medium and Long Term Educational Reform and Development Plan (2010â2020) put forward the concept that plans for social development should give priority to the development of education and that financial funds should give priority to investment in education. Public resources should firstly meet the development needs of education and human resources. âOne pathâ refers to the progressive and gradual path that education reform and development should follow. Like economic reform, education reform in China adheres to a progressive and gradual model. Reform has little threat on the existing interest pattern and its impact is controllable on the whole. That is to say, we have managed to handle the relationship between reform, development and stability in the field of education reform and provided a favorable external environment for education reform and development.
1.1.2 Education Reform Gets into Deep-Water Area
With the acceleration of economic globalization and social transformation, educational development is confronting new challenges and problems in a number of areas. The Chinese education reform gets into deep-water area.
First is the challenge from the new industrial revolution. From the international perceptive, the combination of internet technology and renewable energy has created a strong foundation for the new industrial revolution. In the age of digitalization, the speed of global knowledge creation and technological innovation is obviously accelerated. The enthusiasm and potential power of the revolution of new science and technology is continually increasing. Scientific and technological innovation has become a decisive force in the adjustment of economic structures and sustainable economic development. Many countries have elevated innovation to the level of a core national development strategy. The whole world has entered into an unprecedented innovation age. The Chinese Government is convinced that the catching-up strategy will not make China into an innovative country, and that an innovation-driven development strategy must be implemented. The implementation of this strategy has imposed a new requirement on the education system in China. China cannot complete the adjustment of its economic structure and change its development model to cope with the challenge of the new industrial revolution without greatly increasing its ability to innovate by educating large numbers of talented, innovative people.
Second is the challenge of the economic and social transformation, which has reached a critical phase. The main characteristics of this phase are serious and obvious imbalances, lack of coordination and non-sustainability in economic and social development. Reform has got into deep water and all kinds of periodic, structural and institutional contradictions have appeared simultaneously. Chinaâs GDP per capita reached $5000 in 2011, reaching the level of a middle-income country. Therefore it is important for the Chinese people to break through the middle-income trap. Given the global economic situation caused by the 2008 financial crisis, it is important to know how to reach the top end of the global industry chain and achieve industrial transformation and upgrading. In the face of the profound change of the economic system, it is important to overcome the monopolization and low capability in independent innovation among state-run enterprises. In the face of the awakening of civic consciousness and the polarization of social interests, the problems of urban and rural interest patterns, area and regional interest patterns and industrial interest patterns must be recognized. In the face of an aging society, it is also crucial to ensure international competitiveness after the disappearance of the demographic dividend.
Third is the challenge from education modernization. Under the influence of the traditional planned-economic system, modernization of the education governance system and the improvement of capability still have a long way to go. There are several contradictions and problems here. The first is the outdated concept of education and the human resources cultivation and training model. Basic education is replaced by test-oriented education. It is difficult to promote quality-oriented education. Students are weak in innovation and practice. There is a great shortage of top-notch innovative talents. The second problem is the irrational distribution of education resources. Moreover, education structure and layout is relatively irrational. The development of urban, rural and regional education is unbalanced and education development in poverty-stricken areas and minority-inhabited areas is lagging. There is a gap of ten times between eastern and western parts of China in per student education investment. There is great disparity between supply and demand, and there is a great shortage of quality education services. In some areas, it is difficult for pupils to go to school due to inadequate schools and inconvenient transportations. The third problem is the unsound education system and inefficient mechanisms. There is a lack of autonomy in the running of schools. A modern school system has not yet been established. There is a lack of vitality in the development of schools. There is an unsound policy and system framework. System change is not linked or coordinated. The strategy of prioritizing educational development has not been fully carried out yet. The management system and developing mechanism has not kept up, and the resources usage efficiency needs to be improved.
On the whole, some new problems have arisen in education reform and development in China that need to be solved. High quality talents with international vision must be cultivated and trained to cope with the challenge from the new industrial revolution. Top-notch innovative talents with creative spirit and practical ability must be cultivated and trained to cope with the challenge from the economic transformation in China. And education must be developed to satisfy the people and cope with the challenge of building a moderately well-off society in all respects. An education governance structure and a modern school system must be established to cope with the challenge of modernization of the education governance system.
1.2 Policy Trend: Build a Fair and Just Society through Education
1.2.1 Guiding Ideology: Develop Education to the Satisfaction of the People
In order to cope with the challenges and opportunities in education reform and development, the report of the CPC 18th National Congress emphasizes developing education to the satisfaction to the people. This is the general guiding ideology of education reform in China for some time to come.
Because education must firstly satisfy the students, education reform must follow a student-centered doctrine. The development of students is the ultimate goal of education reform. Educational development and reform should not only meet the important strategic requirements of the country and the society, but also start from the needs of the students and meet the requirements of their personal development. Student-centered education pays attention to studentsâ healthy growth and adheres to the law of education and caring about every student. Education involves two aspects: One is outward education, which trains people to make a living and prepares them for their future life. The other is inward education, which extends the inherent spirit of the person and improves their personality. The former is the training in skills while the latter is the cultivation of personality.
The Partyâs 17th National Congress pointed out that the core aim of education reform and development is to build a country rich in human resource power, with an emphasis on skills training. In a special historical period of economic taking off in China, it was absolutely necessary to emphasize the teaching of skills. Japan put forward the education concept of building the country through technology during the economic booming period and developed training of skills to the perfection in cultivating human resources. As China was about to enter a new stage of historical development, the Third Plenary Session of the CPC 18th Central Committee pointed out that on the one hand, studentsâ sense of social responsibility must be cultivated as well as their innovative spirit and practical ability. On the other hand, studentsâ aesthetic and humanistic qualities should be cultivated, too. Both skills training and the cultivation of personality should be emphasized.
1.2.2 Reform Goal: Quality and Equality
Improving quality and guaranteeing equality are the goals established by the Third Plenary Session of the CPC 18th Central Committee for education reform. But for some, quality and equality appear to be contradictory concepts. Efforts to improve quality involve diverting resources to a few people, resulting in ultimate damage to equality. However, emphasizing equality means equal distribution of resources, resulting in failure to improve quality. This view is one-sided. Although quality and equality have a contradictory relationship, they are not in conflict with each other.
The quality of education is of great importance to people. During the Reform and Opening Up, China made great achievements in education, developing a path with Chinese characteristics, and built the largest education system in the world. As a large country, we have ensured that people âcanâ go to school, but we have not yet ensured that people can go to âgoodâ schools. The contradiction between the ever-growing educational needs of the people and the inability to provide quality e...